Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/110922
Sarasota News Leader February 22, 2013 And the return on investment? Page 28 Can you give an example? Dorfman: All I know is we sit in Planning Board meetings and it���s just, ���No, no, no��� every time. Laurel Park overlay, ���No, no, no.��� When one person���s property rights are allegedly more valuable than another person���s property rights, I don���t think that���s a terribly good I think you would have a difficult time mak- thing. ing the numbers work without a mixed-use The [proposed] doctor���s office at Tahiti Park: retail component on the ground floor. The What is so objectionable to that? What I find people I���m talking to are a number of different amazing is, people will buy homes that abut groups, but all thinking the same way. major highways and expect nothing to go in But take the North Trail. If you build it, will there and fight against anything to go in there. they come? Once you���ve got the rooftops and I remember the hell they put poor Marietta people there, you���re going to attract retail. [through] and her Museum of Whimsy, which That���s part of the equation. But you will at- is a nonprofit good deed, like no good deed tract even more retail to service the people goes unpunished. That���s the attitude: It���s ���No��� who are living in those units. In other inter- at any cost. I don���t think it���s good for the city. views, I���ve said it���s a domino effect. I talk to a lot of young families up and down It broadens the tax base; it creates a hous- the North Trail. They would love to have more ing level we desperately need in Sarasota. It���s amenities on the North Trail; they would love infill and moves crime out. Hopefully, it will to have the crime pushed in, but we continue provide jobs for residents in northern Saraso- to have a very vocal minority group of people ta. You kill a lot of birds with one stone, and it who, that���s their job; they say, ���No.��� They have the time to come to City Hall and the time won���t take that big a tweak to do it. to do the protests and write the articles and That���s why we have to look at the possibilities make the speeches, while the young folks are on these parcels of land on a node-by-node ba- out trying to raise their families and their jobs. sis. Can we do it here? Obviously, you can���t do That���s sort of my soapbox, and probably not it everywhere. But there are places you can. If what I should be saying in this interview, but we could make the environment legislatively we need to look to the future, not the past. welcoming to do it, I think we���ll have a market ��������� for it. Dorfman: They wouldn���t be doing it if they didn���t think they weren���t going to make money. Plus you bring in your retail on the bottom, on the ground floor, which boosts your income. Do you think the legislative environment One refrain we hear is the need to ���grow the city.��� If you are talking about inis adverse to development? creasing the tax base, then you are Dorfman: From what I���ve seen, yes. talking about density and height. Down-